The Next Trek Starts

After two and a half days, most of which was spent having things which had gone wrong during my absence righted, I started the trek to Australia. 

All went well with a taxi appearing as soon as I appeared at the school gate, I got a seat in the waiting room at the train station and it wasn’t hideously hot, I had a seat on the comfortable, fast but really expensive train to Beijing. The middle-aged Chinese man I was sitting beside even put my backpack on the overhead luggage rack.  That was a first.    

The rot started when I arrived in Beijing.  The station was really busy and the taxi queue which always looks daunting, but in reality moves quickly so normally I’m in and out within 20 minutes, looked horrendous.  I guessed it as a 40 minute wait which in fact lasted 65 minutes. The queue was like a funnel with the narrow part actually turned back on the end of the queue so a really wide section, in excess of 6 people wide, has to narrow to accommodate about 2 people width within sturdy metal rails. It was hot, but not sweat inducing, and people were queue jumping.  Eventually a brawl broke out.  I was too short and too far away to see the whole episode.  However, I did see a Chinese woman bashing just about anyone with a sturdy rolled umbrella and using great vigor.  Eventually some of the men in the vicinity managed to settle it down and a middle aged couple left the queue.  In a country where guards, security personnel and police are everywhere not one was to be seen at any stage.  A few people, including one close to me did get pushed over by the fracas, but soon everything continued as usual with people continuing to queue jump and use might to push their way through.  I had one behind me who was digging me in the back with the metal on his bucket of coat hangers and then had the hide to indicate my backpack was in the way of a woman behind me.  If it was in the way it was because she was too close to me.   There 3 other pink faces in the crowd, British businessmen, who were aloof, but one did make sure I negotiated the turn in the funnel without the other guy getting in my way.

After I got to the hostel and unwound I headed out to check out the location of the shuttle bus departure point, get some money and buy some wool for a friend. The ATM and bank were closed for renovations so I headed off for the wool. After not locating the correct subway exit and exiting at one which left me completely confused the assistance of 3 passersby soon had me back in familiar territory and in possession of some more camel wool.  I went searching for an ATM I felt comfortable using and didn’t find it.  I did find the Peninsula Hotel, a very swanky affair, and felt sure that it would have a Bank of China ATM.  I wandered in past its uniformed attendants, marble, flowing waterfalls, musical recitals and eventually found the ATM.  I cleared out my account and probably still didn’t have enough to buy a pair of socks in their high end shops.

I saw a Novotel Hotel and thinking it was the back end of the one I’d been told was near the first ATM I’d visited thought I would walk back to the hostel. I soon found myself in unfamiliar territory again, very expensive shopping area, and on asking got told to take a bus.  So I lined up and then was told to catch the bus on the other side of the street. I discovered there were 2 Novotels in the vicinity and my bus trip showed me another part of Beijing.  I was not in a photo taking mood so there are none.

Today I left to catch the shuttle bus to the airport to discover it had moved departure point from where I found it yesterday. Not far, but enough to be annoying and I was glad I had not thrown out the piece of paper containing the Chinese words for it. Eventually I reached the airport, we boarded the plane to Shanghai late and sat on the tarmac for about 40 minutes. When that happened with Etihad we were diverted with sandwiches and drink; we got nothing today and no food in air during a 2 hour plus trip.  The highlight of the day is that my bag weighs half a kilo under the magic weight so I have had no weight problems and I didn’t have to jettison anything when repacking this morning.

My Qantas flight to Sydney is about to board so I will see if I can post this before I go.